NHS choices gives a very clear overview of Parkinson’s disease symptoms, causes, treatment and advice on living with Parkinson’s. There is also a box on this page for you to look for local services for Parkinson’s disease signposting you to local groups and organisations that can help.

This You Tube video featuring Dr Shapira is worth spending forty minutes watching if you want to get a good understanding of which part of the brain is affected (the part that’s responsible for the ‘auto-pilot’ part of movement) and what’s happening to dopamine (the messenger from one nerve cell to another). He talks through the history of Parkinson’s, the causes (no environmental causes known), the symptoms and most importantly the treatments and the research that’s ongoing. He explains the main drug treatments- Levodopa, Dopamine agonists, MAOB inhibitors and Anticholinergics- and how treatment might progress over time.

Medication is key to treating the symptoms of Parkinson’s. Taking the medicines at the right time is key to getting the best outcomes and being able to understand if the medication is getting the right results. Medicine management solutions are therefore really important.

“Simple hacks for life with Parkinson’s” is a TED talk featuring designer Mileha Soneji. In this short video Mileha helps you to understand how visual cues affect ‘freezing’ and the auto-pilot of movement not working as it should.

There are a couple of exercise programmes which have been shown to have a positive impact on mobility for people with Parkinson’s. The first is called “BIG” which works on exaggerated movements to overcome some of the loss of smooth movements.

The other is the Alexander Technique which can help improve the fluidity of movement and improvements in posture which can have a surprisingly big impact on mobility for people with Parkinson’s. Here is a link to the research papers.

Finally, there are lots of products out there that can help. We’ve pulled together what we think are the best selection for medication management, dressing (including shirts with magnetic closures), managing in the kitchen, eating and drinking, getting around, pain control, comfort and sleeping. Click here to see our selection.